Saturday, 4 February 2017

World Cancer Day

well.... it's World Cancer Day.... for me, every single day is Cancer day!

I never knew anyone who'd had cancer, my parents both died but not of cancer of other health problems. But no, no one

then... my daughter got cancer... where from? who knows. She was a healthy 21 year old woman, who was fit... she did pole dancing, could hold herself upside down. Ate a vegetarian diet for the majority of her life. Never ate processed food and we never had a microwave.

One day, she was fine, then she felt like she had a stitch in her side, maybe a pulled muscle. She went to the GP who gave her some pain medication, she took the medication. 5 days later she was vomiting blood. I took her to the hospital where we discovered she had an ulcer from the pain meds. This was bad enough. Then after numerous blood tests and scans then discovered cancer... it was neuro-endocrine cancer. That was 2 weeks into her going into hospital.

6 weeks later Lily died. She came home one night but it was too traumatic. so we had no 3 6 9 months to live, no time to do anything. I spent every night sleeping next to her at hospital either in a chair or in a put up bed. My brother took time off work to do the same.

She was one brave girl. I miss her so much every single day. I cannot stop thinking about all the pain she went through and that I could not help her. I could only sit and watch my child suffer and slowly die in front of my eyes.

my heart goes out to anyone who suffered any sort of cancer as well as their loved ones.

Reading about your daughter breaks my heart. My father died at age 56 from lung cancer in 1979 and life without him has never been the same. One day he was fine and two weeks later he they were removing his lung. He never had a chance...from the day he entered the hospital until the day he died a year later...his life was not his life. In and out of the hospital, several surgeries with no chance of living more than a year. He died one year to the day they said he would. But then I read your story about Lilly and she what a gorgeous young lady and I can't begin to comprehend the thoughts of losing a child.

Whatever I say just doesn't seem like enough....but having lived through this with my father I feel your pain. Stay strong for Lilly that is all you can do. Go on for Lilly because that is what she would want you to do. The pain will always be there, as I once told, just under the surface and sometimes it will be filled with pain and sometimes and I hope more often filled with wonderful memories.